On behalf of the Association for Career Guidance and Career Development and also in my own name let me express my deep thanks to the IAEVG Board of Directors for their decision to organise the IAEVG 2019 Conference in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Slovakia is a young country, established in early 90´s of the 20th century on the grounds of previous Czechoslovakia, a country existing in the middle of Europe since the end of the World War I. Nevertheless, career guidance and counselling services have in our country and in this region quite a long history – the first guidance centres were established here in late 1920´s, only about twenty years later than historically the first one of Frank Parsons. Much has changed since those times, we are now facing the same challenges as all other developed countries in the world, better career guidance services for all is one of them.

Organising IAEVG Conference 2019 in Bratislava, Slovakia, is for me personally something like a miracle – I have been an individual IAEVG member since 1999, and I participated in few IAEVG conferences during these years. All of them were a kind of a feast for me, and I am sure that also for the whole guidance community. I have no doubts that it will be the same also now – for you, and definitely for me. Theme of the conference “Career Guidance for Inclusive Society“ is moreover strong and urgent enough to come. Bratislava as a city and Slovakia as a country are beautiful locations, and this is another reason to be here.

Štefan Grajcár

Vice-Chair of the Association for Career Guidance and Career Development